Wednesday, August 10, 2016

BY DEFAULT I RETURNED TO THE HIGH SIDE OF THE LOW SIDE

WILD CHICORY ALONG THE ROADSIDE

Woke up this morning and found myself in the dumpster. No not a metal dumpster but a mental dumpster. Went to sleep Tuesday night on the Okay side of positive but woke up a few blocks on the south side of negative. Now I’ve never really understood what happens to the human brain in the overnight hours sometimes but I do know going to bed with a head full of problems and waking up with a clear head is not unheard of either.

YES I AM STILL THINKING ‘AUTUMN’

I do have a bad habit of falling asleep with the television on and if I’ve left one of the cable news channels on it’s no wonder my sub conscious could be affected by all the current political turmoil and chaos south of the border.

HEY I FINALLY HAVE CONFIRMATION ABOUT OUR AREAS BLACK BEAR SIGHTINGS THIS SUMMER:))

Couldn’t get myself interested in doing anything in the front yard and I had to really work on myself to even get interested in taking Pheebs out for Jeep ride. Luckily Pheebs was determined not to let me fall prey to my recliner and kept after me to take her for a Jeep ride. And finally that’s what we did.

Took our usual route over to the Hullett Marsh and stopped for a short walk at one of our favorite ‘go-to’ spots. It was 9:30 and already the hot sun was spiking the humidity index and ratcheting up temperatures making our walk very short. A heat advisory had already been issued saying this could be the hottest day of the year so far. This type of weather is so unhealthy in many ways. Anytime one is forced indoors by the extremes of winter’s cold or summer’s heat the inactivity this can cause is never a good thing whether it affects one mentally or physically. And both those things go hand in hand. Say, I wonder if I fell asleep with the weather channel on…………….

MORE BUTTERFLYS ON OUR BUTTERFLY BUSH TODAY

A short swing through the countryside with the Jeep’s A/C on saw Pheebs and I back home again by 10:30 hastily retreating inside to the comforting coolness of our house.

Despite the day’s wretched heat I did spend a sweaty half hour outside later relocating our Butterfly Bush this afternoon. Silly me had planted it in the shadow of our bird station instead of in full sun. Moved it about 4 feet to the south side where it now gets as much sun as possible each day. So far despite the miserable heat everything I have planted over the last couple weeks is doing well but has required some attentive watering.

I am sometimes asked about my camera equipment or which photo editing program I use. There are many editing programs out there and for me my absolute favorite for all these blogging years has been Google’s Picasa. For a free program it packs a lot of editing punch. Here is an excerpt from an email I sent a reader this afternoon after receiving an inquiry as to what photo editing program she could look for. Below in part are my thoughts on that and no that is not me in the next photo although I am sure there are similarities.

The free photo editing program I use and have been using for the best part of 10 years is Google's Picasa's 3.9 but Google doesn't support it any more and I'm not sure if it can still be downloaded or how long it will be around. In my opinion this has been by far the best free photo editing program out there and if at some point I lose my Picasa program I am going to be in a real mess. Google is suggesting Picasa users move on to their newer 'Google Photos' editing program but I can tell you straight up it doesn't hold a candle to Picasa. I have looked at and tried the 'Google Photo' program and compared to Picasa’s creative editing tools it's a joke. It's geared to mobile devices where everything is instant this and instant that. If your priority is 'snapping' a cell phone pic and sending it instantly without regards to a quality photograph then I suppose 'Google Photo' may just be your ticket. If you care about the quality of your photos and want a reasonably easy program to learn then Picasa 3.9 is a great place to start, if it's still available that is. For the folks who really, really, care about photo quality and lots of fancy schmancy stuff there is always the professional photo editing programs one can buy and attempt to learn but for someone like me who needs an easy to learn and easy to understand photo platform Picasa has been perfect all these years. My photos are an example of what can be done with a simple photo editing program like Picasa and I would highly recommend it to anyone providing it's still available. And also know it could suddenly end one day now that it's not supported by Google anymore……………:((

THERE ARE 3 CRITTERS HERE, CAN YOU SPOT THE SHY ONE

AHHHHH THERE IT IS

AND HERE’S THE NOT SO SHY ONE

Thanks to readers for offering solutions to our Jeep’s ‘rolling locks’ problem. Some folks may remember me writing several posts about a month ago telling of how Kelly did try exactly what our Jeep manual had instructed. No luck. Several reader’s also sent in solutions which she tried as well but again no luck. You may remember we even drove the Jeep over to the Jeep/Chrysler dealer in Exeter Ontario to have them do it but no luck again and even they were baffled as to why, using their own solutions, they could not disable our Jeep Liberty’s rolling locks feature either. Said they had never run across that before where they couldn’t fix that problem.

WATER LEVELS ARE WAY DOWN ON SOME AREA PONDS CAUSING THEM TO BE CHOKED WITH WATER LILIES

SPOTTED THIS LITTLE FELLOW IN OUR FRONT YARD POND EARLIER TODAY

Somehow my mind managed to dig itself out of the ditch as the day wore on and surprisingly enough by default I ended the day on the high side of the low side.

GROANER’S CORNER:(( Today’s Stock Market Report::

Helium was up, feathers were down. Paper was stationary. Fluorescent tubing was dimmed in light trading. Knives were up sharply. Cows steered into a bull market. Pencils lost a few points. Hiking equipment was trailing. Elevators rose, while escalators continued their slow decline. Weights were up in heavy trading. Light switches were off. Mining equipment hit rock bottom. Diapers remained unchanged. Shipping lines stayed at an even keel. The market for raisins dried up. Coca Cola fizzled. Caterpillar stock inched up a bit. Sun peaked at midday. Balloon prices were inflated. Scott Tissue touched a new bottom. And batteries exploded in an attempt to recharge the market

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Complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica. 45 volumes. Excellent condition. $1,000.00 or best offer. No longer needed. Got married last weekend. Wife knows everything.

It is very weird that we can wake up with cranky pants on, never knowing when we made the change. Glad yours happy-ed up by day's end. Nice bear catch! Love the flowers and bees - so pretty. The frog is my favorite :-))))

I am glad that you dug your way out during the day. Much better way to feel.I too love Picasa and find it the best for a free program and like you said Google photo is a joke, too bad...Good luck with getting up on the right side today.

AL'S CAMERA EQUIPMENT

A sometimes asked question readers have about my blog is what kind of a camera do I use. Well I have 5 of them and use all 5.

'UPDATE':: July 2017 Thanks to a very generous blog reader I have been able to update my Nikon camera equipment and supplement my camera gear with a couple additional fine Sony cameras as well.I now have a Nikon D7200 sporting a new Nikkor 18-300 3.5 zoom lens. Also have picked up a new Nikkor 1.8 primary 35mm lens. In addition I also now have a Sony RX100-3 camera as well as a Sony Exmore Cybershot. I have given my Canon Powershot point and shoot camera to a neighbor.

- In early 2017 I replaced my Nikon D-90 camera with a new D-3400 after the 'auto focus' feature on my aging D-90 quit working. The Nikon D-90 had been my work horse camera sporting a Nikkor 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6 lens. I used this camera for most of my landscapes and I now have it set up for night photography where 'auto focus' is not necessary.

-My older faithful and favorite Nikon D-40 finally packed it in during the summer of 2015 and I replaced it with a new Nikon D-3100 which now carries my Nikkor 70-300mm 1:4.5-6.6 lens. I use this camera & lens for most of my candid people photos, birds, animals, bugs & flower close-ups.

- Previous to my Nikon D-90, most of my photos were taken with my old faithful Nikon D-50 from 2006 to early 2011 whereupon the D-50 suffered a rather gruesome death when it fell off a table onto a cement porch in southeastern Arizona. The 70-300mm lens on the camera survived the fall but the D-50 did not. My Nikkor lenses are interchangable between the D-90 the D-3100 and the D-3400.

-My Canon Powershot SX210iS is a point & shoot camera which I carry in a case on my belt everywhere I go.-My older Canon Powershot A720iS is the camera that sits close to my recliner for most of those doggy living room photos.